Bad start

Today didn't start off well. In fact, on Facebook this morning, I posted this:


Let me explain. Charlie. Oh I love him, but sometimes his eccentricities drive me batty. He is OBSESSED with the shower. I think it's because it was the last place he learned how to jump into because the wall of the tub is really high. Two days ago he finally jumped up there. Nevertheless, he still waits RIGHT OUTSIDE the shower until I'm done. And then, when I go to get out, he won't move. I shake water on him from my foot. He won't move. I pretend to step on him. He won't move. So I either end up awkwardly stepping over him or gently kicking him out of the way. Also, I might add, that this is all made more complicated by the fact that the litter box is right in front of the shower because it's the only place for it. So my stepping space is reduced a lot.

So anyway, to help myself and prevent (or so I thought) myself from falling, I've taken to supporting myself on the towel rack. This worked fantastically up until yesterday, when I almost fell on my face because it cracked under the pressure (upon further inspection it's made from cheap plastic). However, it didn't break all the way through and since I needed a place to hang my hand towel and washcloth, I put it back up.

Today, I forgot about that and went to support myself on the towel rack. It subsequently broke and I ended up STEPPING IN THE LITTER BOX! And no, I hadn't cleaned it out yet. GROSS.

Then I opened my yogurt and left it on the table as I made my hot cocoa. Charlie also LOVES yogurt, and he jumped onto the table and LICKED my yogurt. It was one of the really good Soprole Americano yogurts too!

Also, this day wasn't going to be great because I had to go to my ISAPRE (health insurance company) to pay a $25.000 peso debt (approximately $50.00). Turns out when I had unpaid vacation, the Institute didn't take my health insurance payment out of my check. So I went to CruzBlanca to the Cobranza department to pay my debt.

I was about to go to the cash register to pay when the agent I was talking to told me "Hold on a second, let me check something." She found out that the Institute had taken too much money out of my paycheck last august and so CruzBlanca just took my debt out of that money. So, I owed $0.00!

So now I have $25.000 that I thought I wouldn't have. The day is looking up.

Getting Personal

Sometimes I have trouble with setting up boundaries in my life. I think I've done a pretty good job with this blog. There are times when I want to blab about every little detail of my personal life on here, but I mostly realize that isn't a good idea for many reasons. First, for the people who don't know me. I mean, I guess it doesn't really matter if some stranger knows the knitty-gritty if I'm never going to meet them, but it creeps me out to know that some NN (as they say in Spanish) would know everything about me. Secondly, for the people close to me that read this blog, because I could be writing about them. I try to maintain confidentiality as much as possible, but obviously if the person knows the situation they're going to know I'm talking about them, and then there might be hurt feelings and there's nothing I hate more than hurt feelings, be it my own or someone else's.

How do you all manage what to write and what not to write on your blog? Do you bare all? I think of bloggers like Dooce and can't imagine writing everything that she does. But she's probably the most successful blogger out there and maybe that's why she's had so much success, because she just tells everything. On the other hand, she does have a lot of enemies and I'm sure her family gets angry about what she writes. I wonder what her kids will think when they get older.

Anyway, I guess I'm trying to find a balance. It's hard because sometimes I just want to blog about something but I can't. Maybe I should start keeping a personal journal. What a concept!

Let's Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (No, No, No)

I know Sara, Lydia and other Chile bloggers have written about this before. It's high time I got my two cents in as well. I just spent all day in a workshop for Becas Chile recipients about subjectivity vs. objectivity, culture shock, etc, so I would just like to clarify that perhaps I am currently in a low point on the Culture Shock spectrum (I think it's called Adjusting) and also that this opinion is probably very subjective, though I may talk about it as if it were objective. Anyway, here I go.

Chileans don't know how to make plans. Let me re-phrase that. Chileans sometimes make plans, but it's like herding cats to get them to keep their plans. In my experience, this especially applies to long-term plans, which for a Chilean is anything past tomorrow (haha, I joke, kind of). If I had a penny for every long term plan I made with a Chilean that never happened, I'd be a millionaire. There's the typical promise of "juntémonos!" (let's get together!) that never comes to fruition. There are weekend get-away plans, there are plans to get sushi, there are plans to have drinks after work (which admittedly, I can never do because I start work when most people are getting out), there are plans for barbecues, plans to keep in touch.

This was hard for me at first, but I came to accept it from people I didn't know that well. It's part of the culture, and since I'm different, I'm the one who has to adapt. I understand that.

However, recently it has begun to happen with people who are close to me. I fully understand that I am friends with busy people. They are doing very important things and sometimes friends fall by the wayside when you are working and/or studying 15 hours a day. However, if I were that busy (and please, God, never make me that busy EVER) I wouldn't make plans unless I were sure I could keep them. Even if, for example, I made plans with someone then found out I had a test the next day I had to study for, I would probably still get together with that person, but maybe just for a shorter amount of time.

Another thing that I found out about recently is that you're supposed to confirm plans the day of. I didn't know this, and I guess it wasn't necessary until now. But I had made a plan with someone for example on a Sunday for a Wednesday (I know, dumb move!). So I, as a rational gringa, thought that the plan was set. Then on Wednesday, the person never showed up to my house. I was livid. I commented this to my students and they said, "Oh, it's probably because you didn't confirm the day of." Um, what? If I say, "Come to my house at 9:00 on Wednesday" that literally means, "Come to my house at 9:00 on Wednesday." But apparently, some (most?) Chileans think this means "Come to my house on Wednesday only if you call me on Wednesday morning, and since you said 9:00 I'll of course show up at 10:00." Excuse me while I pull my hair out and bang my head against the nearest wall.*

Maybe a Chilean would be more understanding. Maybe I should be more understanding. But honestly, this really bothers me. I know this has to do with the fact that Chileans are also not capable of saying "no" to anything, so when I say "Let's get together this weekend," "Yes, okay!" is the only response they know how to say, even if in the back of their mind they have a test next Monday and will spend all weekend studying, or that it's their Great Aunt Juanita's birthday and they have to spend the weekend with their family in Los Andes.

What I do understand, though, is that I'm the foreigner here. I'm not asking Chileans to change their culture. I do ask for a bit of understanding though, that I am a gringa and I do have different expectations. Sometimes I feel as if I should wear a tee-shirt that says "Gringa: Handle with Care." As in, understand why I'm upset and be a bit culturally sensitive to my different world view. Is that too much to ask?



*In all fairness, this actually wasn't the whole reason the person didn't show up.

Dreams of my Father (and Sister)

I'm going home in a month to visit my family. I'm really excited, and apparently my subconscious is too, because last night I had three dreams that prominently featured my Dad and Sister. The first dream was actually pretty scary, so I'm not sure what that is trying to tell me.

So in the first dream Dad was the owner of a website that allowed its members to "adopt" a criminally insane person. My Sister and I worked for him, and our job was to watch two of the insane prisoners and blog about it. There was live webcam feed of the prisoner at all times and my Sister and I provided live updates on the blog. For some reason, we worked at night and there were very few guards on duty. My prisoner was a female version of Hanibal Lecter. She wore a mask to prevent her from biting people and these strange gloves that prevented her from trying to pick at her lock and escape. She had wild, stringy brown hair and crazy brown eyes. She growled at people. My sister's prisoner was an older lady. I didn't get a good look at her in my dream. She was the less dangerous of the two. Inevitably, every night the female Hanibal would escape and the guards would have to subdue her. I was always really scared to start work. This particular night, Dad lectured my Sister and I to not let our fear or biases against the prisoners show through in our writing. "Remember," he told us, "you are trying to sell these people to our members!" So anyway, female Hanibal escaped and almost attacked my sister and I, and then I woke up. It was traumatizing.

Then I had a dream I was partying with my sister and a bunch of friends from high school. We were in a room that someone at the party owned. We had some beer, but not too much, soda, a radio playing music, and some potato chips. It was a pretty tame party. The house was owned by a rich woman, but for some reason she didn't own the room we were in, so we thought we wouldn't have any problems. I guess the music got too loud because she came in and yelled at us. She accused us of having an underage drinking party, but we assured her that we were all over 21. Then she threatened to call the cops who would then call our employers and tell them how irresponsible we all were. For some reason, that really freaked me out and I didn't want to play the music very loud. However, some guys who went to my high school thought it was an empty threat so they blasted the music even louder than before. In the morning I took a train home and my dad picked me up from the train. I was carrying one hiking boot, and a bag of empty beer cans.

Then I went shopping with my sister on Alonso de Cordova (haha you can tell this is a dream, I can barely afford the micro ride to get to Alonso de Cordova right now!) and for some reason we were pushing the shopping cart out on the sidewalk in between stores. I wanted to go to a furniture store, but my sister wanted to go buy tank tops. I told her to buy me one. So she went and bought us both the same tank top, but in different colors. Hers was purple (that's her color) and mine was salmon pink.

Apparently my subconscious has been hard at work. All I know is that I'm very excited to go home because my Sister is graduating from college and I'm so happy to be able to celebrate with her!

Policía Gramatical

Elieen reminded me with her most recent post that I've been meaning to post this picture for awhile. I'm used to seeing glaring English grammar mistakes all over Chile, but I wasn't expecting to find a Spanish grammar mistake in such a public place!

So it's tax time in Chile, where you go online and click a few buttons and voila, your taxes are done for you. It's great and I really think the US should jump on this bandwagon. There is no reason for taxes to be so difficult as they are in the US. But I digress.

So in some metro cars there are ads for you to get your taxes done early so you can get your money earlier. One of the signs looked like this:

Can you spot the mistake?

Well, what it's trying to say is "Ask to have your tax return deposited in:" (not pictured are the places you can have it deposited). What it actually says is: "Ask to have YOU tax return deposited in:"

You see, in Spanish, the word for "you" has an accent: tú. The word for "your" is the same word, but without the accent: tu.

Also unanswered is why they decided to use a stork to represent tax returns. I thought storks were supposed to deliver babies. Is getting a tax return like having a baby?

Anyway, it surprised me to see such a glaring mistake in such a public place. Although maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, considering the Chilean mint printed a bunch of 50 peso coins with "CHIIE" instead of "CHILE". Perhaps they demoted the guy who made that mistake to the tax department...

Week of the Crazies and a Trip to Ultra-Cuicoland

My dad emailed me today to make sure I was okay because I haven't blogged since Tuesday. Life got kind of crazy this week. It was the first time since last December that I've been so busy, which I guess is a good thing money-wise. However, it left me with precious little time to blog, or do anything domestic. My apartment was pretty darn messy before I spent 5 hours cleaning and doing laundry this afternoon.

One of the reasons I was busier than normal this week is because I started a new private class. My student lives in Vitacura. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to Vitacura. I think, counting Thursday, I've been there three times. Anyway, I had heard of the fabled street Alonso de Cordova where they sell all the designer stuff. When I realized my student lived on this street, I was curious to see what I think is probably one of the most cuico streets in Santiago.

Sure enough, as I walked from the micro stop, I came upon Hermes, Louis Vuitton, BCBG Max Azaria and many other designer stores that I don't remember because I didn't recognize their names.

I'm sure there are some people in Chile who see me on the street and automatically assume that I belong somewhere up there among the designer names. However, it couldn't be farther from the truth. The only designer anything I've ever owned came from TJ Maxx and I didn't even know it was designer until a friend told me. I can't even remember what designer it was!

Anyway, as I exited my student's apartment, a girl walking by asked me for directions to the Municipality of Vitacura.

"Sorry," I told her, "I'm not from around here."

"Ahh, that's okay," she said, "That makes two of us!"

Then we both laughed and continued on our way.

Another annoying cat post

I am sitting here laughing so hard I'm crying because Charlie is so ridiculous. He gets really hyper at night when I get home and goes nuts. I have three cardboard boxes that he likes to jump between and it makes him super hyper, and then he does the STRANGEST thing that makes me laugh so hard. He arches his back and then walks sideways towards me really slowly. It's so strange and it makes me DIE laughing. I tried to take a video of him doing it, but it's hard to get him to do it on cue. The following video isn't the greatest, but it kind of shows what I'm talking about. And yes, that's me annoyingly laughing in the background. I apologize!

El Secreto de Mis Ojos

Recently my eyes have been bothering me. I was blaming it on the "lowering of the smog" as we transition from summer to winter here in Santiago. I wear contacts, so I think the pollution gets trapped in them. That's my theory, anyway.

So last night right before my class, my right eye started stinging like no other. I went to class and my students asked if I was alright, because my eye was watering and I was sniffling. It looked like I had been crying. I told them I was fine, but all through class my eye was killing me. I even went to the bathroom at one point and took out my contact then put it back in. No relief.

As soon as I got home, I took out my contact. Usually, this solves the problem. This time, though, my eye kept stinging. I figured I just needed to sleep it off.

This morning I awoke and I couldn't open my right eye. Opening my left eye also produced some sort of weird sensation in my right eye (I think it's because your eyes move together, so opening the left moved my right eye into an uncomfortable position). I figured I needed to shower and flush my eye out. So I did. No help. In fact, it even felt worse.

So I called Integramedica and scheduled an appointment for 10:45. I had to take a taxi there because I couldn't manage walking down the street with one eye half-open part of the time. Let me tell you, I have so much more respect now for blind people who navigate the streets of Santiago with a cane.

So I got to the doctors and the nurses tried to give me a vision test. I informed them I only wanted someone to look at my eye because, in case they hadn't noticed, I couldn't open it. They kind of ignored me and made me do the test anyway, and one got frustrated because she couldn't do the test on my right eye. I was like, lady, I CAN'T OPEN IT. THAT'S WHY I'M HERE!

So I finally sat down and waited for the doctor.

The verdict? HERPES. IN MY EYE. I should say that I have oral herpes (cold sores) so it's not as surprising as it would have been had I not had that, but seriously, I had NO idea you could get herpes in your eye. After a Google search, I found out that it's relatively common, especially since I have oral herpes.

So the doctor gave me a prescription for three things, two antivirals (pills and an ointment) and some eye drops. Just my luck, I had to go to THREE different pharmacies to get them! First I went to Salcobrand because my insurance has a convenio there. They only had the eye drops and the antiviral pills were ridiculously expensive there. So I didn't buy anything. Then I went to Dr. Simi and got the oral antivirals (they didn't have anything else). Just to compare, SalcoBrand was going to charge me 13.000 pesos for 15 pills. At Dr. Simi a box of 35 pills only cost $6.500. Then I went to CruzBlanca to see if I could get the ointment and drops, but they only had the ointment. So then I had to go BACK to Salcobrand to get the drops. Luckily, that was all within two blocks of my apartment and the doctor had given me a topical anesthetic in my eye so that I could actually see.

This was not how I was planning on spending my Friday.

Anyway, sorry if I grossed anyone out with my medical problems or my use of the word herpes. I feel like herpes is such a taboo word just because it's also an STD. I feel like people need to get over that. HERPES! HERPES! HERPES! There. I hope that helped.

My cat is cute

I've arbitrarily decided, based on the vet's best estimate, that today Charlie turns 3 months old. He's growing by the minute, so that means I must take approximately 100 photos of him over the course of a week. I'm convinced more and more ever day that he is not a cat, but is indeed, an alien. I mean, check out those white whiskers, they are like tentacles!

Judgy McJudgerson

So, good news: my computer is baaaaack! And fixed, as far as I can tell. Let me tell you, though, not having a computer forced me to entertain myself in some mind expanding ways, including listening to educational podcasts (LOOOVE Stuff You Should know and Stuff Mom Never Told You), playing Sudoku, studying Spanish and reading novels. Okay, and also playing approximately 50 games of Solitaire on my iPod and taking approximately 500 pictures of Charlie napping in different positions.

But anyway, so I went to pick up my computer today and I asked the guy what had been wrong. I suspected there was something wrong with the fan, but wanted to know the real deal. He asked me if I use my computer in my bed. I said sometimes, but then after I realized I do it all the time. It's comfy to watch movies in bed! So anyway, he said he found an abnormally large amount of "pelusa" (fuzz) in my computer that was blocking the fan. I swear to God that as he told me, he raised his eyebrows and was COMPLETELY judging me! I mean, I'm sorry, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou-Computer-Fixer, have you NEVER wanted to watch an episode of Lost before you nod off at night? Then he asked me how long I had had the computer, I told him two years (well, two years in July) and he said, "Wow, that was a lot of fuzz for only two years!" Agggh! Apparently, ladies and gents, I have a fuzz problem. So sue me.

He then proceeded to wrap up my cord around the thingy (what is that called?) as you do, and he asked, "Do you wrap your cord like this?" And I said, "Yes, when I need to bring my computer somewhere." AND THEN HE JUDGED ME FOR THAT TOO!! Apparently, it can cause the cord to fray. However, I never take my computer out of my apartment, I'm too afraid it'll get stolen. So I told him that and he RAISED HIS EYEBROWS AGAIN.

Anyway, I don't know what this dude's problem was, but the point is, I have my computer, and it hasn't yet randomly shut off on my yet. I hope it stays fixed because I don't have to go back and deal with Judgy McJudgerson again.

Un hombre honesto

Caminaba por las calles de Barrio Brasil, con calor y apestada porque había caminado 20 minutos y mi clase fue cancelada sin aviso previo. Además me dolían los pies debido a los zapatos lindos, pero poco prácticos, que usaba. Doblé por la esquina de Santa Monica con Cienfuegos y ahí vi un hombre con bicicleta.

"Hola Corazón," me dijo "Eres la niña más linda que he visto hoy día."

Es el piropo más honesto que he recibido en mi vida.

Bless you, or not

I've lived in Chile for a grand total of 22 months (if you include study abroad) and in that time I've learned a lot about what is polite and what is not.

But apparently, you can teach this old (as of tomorrow) gringa some new tricks.

I sneeze a lot. In fact, I have Achoo Syndrome which means that I sneeze when exposed to bright sunlight. I also sneeze when I comb my hair. And when I pluck my eyebrows. And when normal people sneeze, like in dusty places or if I have a cold.

In the U.S., people say "bless you," or if you're my father, "Gesuntheit," when someone sneezes. It's considered kind of rude not to say it. If I'm alone, or talking in front of a group of people when I sneeze, I'll even say "bless me".

In high school Spanish class, we were taught to say "salud" (health) after the first sneeze, "dinero" (money) after the second and "amor" (love) after the third.

I always noticed that in Chile nobody really says this. I always felt kind of sad after I'd sneeze in class and no student would say "salud" or "bless you". Not even my Chilean friends would say it to me. A few weeks ago I was waiting in line at the pharmacy and I sneezed, and the woman next to me said "Salud!" I was so pleasantly surprised that I thanked her probably a little too profusely.

Then last week, while talking to a student about what is considered polite in Chile, I found out that, at least in some circles, saying "salud" after someone sneezes is considered rude! My student wasn't exactly sure why but he guessed that it has something to do with calling attention to the fact that the person has just sneezed.

Now I feel a bit silly because even though no one here says "salud" to me, I say "salud" to everyone who sneezes. That and keeping my mouth open while I yawn sounds like a recipe for disaster, politeness-wise.

At least now I understand, but I haven't decided yet if I want to quit the habit. I feel like this is a situation in which I can easily play the crazy gringa card.